A study to assess the prevailing misconception on HIV/AIDS among rural population

Abstract

Introduction: HIV, the human immunodeficiency virus, is the virus that causes AIDS. For many reasons, AIDS is a disease that commonly misunderstood disease and as a result, unduly feared, but the weapon against fear is knowledge. Objective is to assess knowledge and the status of prevailing misconception of HIV/AIDS in the rural population of Venkatachalam PHC area.

Methods & material: Community based descriptive cross sectional study among people aged more than 13 years, using cluster samplingtechnique, 1332 samples were selected. A pretested structured questionnaire was administered.

Results: It was found that 452(34.02%) of the study population had the misconception that HIV/AIDS can be transmitted by mosquito bites and 157(12.00%) thought that HIV/AIDS can be transmitted by just talking to HIV/AIDS affected person. In the age group of 44-53, 40(31.0%) thought that HIV was transmitted through mosquito bite while 16(12.4%) thought that HIV/AIDS was transmitted by shaking hands, talking and caring for HIV/AIDS affected persons. The prevalence of misconception with regards to modes of transmission was high even among the professionals and skilled laborers.

Conclusion: It can be concluded from the study that only 30% of the study population knew that HIV is a virus; 54% of the subjects knew all the 4 modes of transmission where as 22.40% had no knowledge about all the modes of Transmission.